Fintech Layer Cake
Welcome to Fintech Layer Cake. A podcast where we slice big Financial Technology topics into bite-sized pieces for everybody to easily digest. Our goal is to make fintech a piece of cake for everyone. Fintech Layer Cake is powered by Lithic — the fastest and most flexible way to launch a card program.
Fintech Layer Cake
A Former Prosecutor on How Fintechs Become Targets, with Laurel Loomis Rimon from Jenner & Block
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Laurel Loomis Rimon has spent her career on the enforcement side of fintech. As a federal prosecutor she brought the first case against a digital currency company in the US, years before Bitcoin existed. She later served as an assistant deputy enforcement director at the CFPB, and today she co-chairs the fintech and crypto assets practice at Jenner & Block and founded the firm's payments practice.
In this episode, Reggie Young talks with Laurel about how enforcement and prosecution of fintech actually work in practice. They cover what puts a company on an investigator's radar, what genuinely exposes fintechs and banks to enforcement, how regulators and prosecutors assess good faith, and how she is advising clients to navigate debanking, KYC, and a fast-moving regulatory environment.
Fintech Layer Cake is powered by Lithic, financial infrastructure that helps teams build better card and payments products for consumers and businesses.
Chapters:
00:00 – Cold open: the risk everyone underrates
00:22 – Meet Laurel Loomis Rimon: DOJ, CFPB, and Jenner & Block
02:15 – Prosecuting E-gold, the first digital currency case
04:24 – The legal hooks before crypto law existed
05:48 – Money transmitting becomes a baseline concern
06:10 – What actually makes a company a target
07:13 – Why the company is rarely the target at the start
08:02 – Don't become the platform of choice for illicit actors
08:25 – Regulators are consumers too
09:39 – When the complainant is the regulator's own family
09:57 – What fintechs worry about too much
10:16 – The most boring risk: documentation
12:06 – Product thinking as a compliance skill
12:26 – How regulators assess good faith
12:58 – Why staffing is always key, even in the age of AI
14:18 – When growth outpaces compliance investment
15:40 – Where debanking comes from: Operation Choke Point
17:45 – Reputation risk and the regulatory whiplash
21:02 – How KYC changes amid the debanking pushback
22:25 – The executive order tension banks are caught in
23:34 – Advising fintechs to build for the next administration
25:41 – Where to reach Laurel
Nothing in this podcast should be construed as legal or financial advice.
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